Rosewood or Maple Neck ??

[LaRSin]

I know this has been asked before but I can't find the thread,

What's the difference in playing or sound ?

[al3d]

to me it's more a question of feel then sound for a fretboard, but sound is also a factor to a degree. to me a, and that might as well be all in my head.ahahaha, but when i need a very slick clean sound, the maple does it better...when i go nasty full blown metal..then i need my rosewood..:)

[guitarman2]

Maple neck = brighter, Rosxewood = warmer. Supposedly. Since there is more to do with the tone then just the neck it isn't always true. My rosewood neck tele is much brighter than my maple neck tele. But that is mostly due to the Kinman Broadcaster pups in my rosewood neck tele. My maple neck tele is twangier and the maple neck might have a little to do with that.
I prefer a well worked in maple neck as opposed to a rosewood neck. The problem is that before a maple neck gets worked in (most of them anyway) they have a problem, that when you start sweating they get really sticky and hard to play. With my newest Tele (AV52RI) I've used those square green scouring pads and rubbed them up and down the back of the neck and on the fingerboard to help wear them in a bit. As you rub them you'll see a fine white powder come off. I find this really helps alot.

[al3d]

Maple neck = brighter, Rosxewood = warmer. Supposedly. Since there is more to do with the tone then just the neck it isn't always true. My rosewood neck tele is much brighter than my maple neck tele. But that is mostly due to the Kinman Broadcaster pups in my rosewood neck tele. My maple neck tele is twangier and the maple neck might have a little to do with that.
I prefer a well worked in maple neck as opposed to a rosewood neck. The problem is that before a maple neck gets worked in (most of them anyway) they have a problem, that when you start sweating they get really sticky and hard to play. With my newest Tele (AV52RI) I've used those square green scouring pads and rubbed them up and down the back of the neck and on the fingerboard to help wear them in a bit. As you rub them you'll see a fine white powder come off. I find this really helps alot.

+1 one that mate. once a maple neck as been played...say 15 years..hehe..it's pretty hard to beat..:)

[mhammer]

There's the top, and there's the bottom.

Maple necks come in two varieties, usually, a rosewood or a maple fretboard. Some folks will claim that a rosewood fingerboard is the brighter of the two, some the opposite. What they're both missing is the incorporation of what they sit on top of. That neck could be a single piece neck, a laminate of 7 symmetrically arranged darknesses of wood, or something in between. It could also be a mahogany neck (my favourite sometimes). I imagine a rosewood fingerboard sitting atop a mahogany neck sounds different than the same fingerboard atop a maple neck.

I guess one has to think of the fingerboard material in much the same way one thinks about the bridge. After all, the fret IS essentially "the other bridge saddle", and the extent to which the joint between the fret and fingerboard, and the fingerboard and neck, absorbs energy at different frequencies or not, determines the resulting tone sensed at the pickups. This is no different than the way a given bridge can produce a different tonal quality depending on the nature of its coupling to the body as well as its materials. The same bridge sitting on a maple top laminated to a mahogany body sounds different than one sitting atop an agathis or all-mahogany body.

Personally, I like mahogany necks because they tend to resonate more and you can feel the note sustaining in your fret-hand. I suppose other players differ, but I find it enhances my ability to use finger-vibrato as a result. In terms of fingerboard, I suspect that a worn maple fingerboard shares more in common with rosewood than a shiny laquered one does.

[thechamp96@hotmail.c]

In terms of feel, a maple fretboard is a little slippier than the rosewood (rosewood is gripped a bit more by your finger tips). It is really personal preference in terms of feel - as for sound, I've played both a fair amount and I think that the body wood, shape, electronics and hardware have a much bigger effect on sound than the fretboard (I don't think the fretboard wood has any detectable difference in sound personally!).

In terms of feel, try maple and rosewood and if you get the chance, give ebony a shot. Ebony is my personal favourite since I grew up playing stringed instruments like the violin, but it is getting kinda rare to find these days on guitars. Ebony is also slippery, similar to maple, but it feels dense and very different then maple after you've gotten used to it.